Old-School Wednesdays: “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It”

It’s funny the little things we remember. Like, how I stayed home one day to memorize the lyrics to this song (I still know all of them). Or how I can’t watch this video for R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” without thinking about how my friend Rachel said she was going to marry the boy in the video one day. The adorable boy in the video, it turns out (thanks Google!), is Noah Ray, a scrawny kid from Athens, Georgia, who happened to be plucked from obscurity and made a video star. Sadly, his R.E.M. affiliation ended up kind of ruining his life. He was teased so mercilessly for being in the video that he dropped out of high school, and now fronts his own terribly named band, Music Hates You. So no, Rachel never did marry him.